The Temptation Read online

  “Let me.” He moved me aside, stood in front of me, and took my hands again.

  I wanted to argue but his touch was doing something to me. It was melting me, making me want so much from him. At that moment I could hardly think straight from all of the desire and longing I had bottled up inside me over the past months.

  Shouldn’t have asked him to come up, Lexi. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

  He finished picking out the glass then rinsed my palms under the water. His touch was firm yet gentle. He released my hands then looked at my knees. I looked, too, almost bumping his head with mine.

  “Sit.” He took me by the arm and pushed me down into a chair at my small kitchen table, then crouched in front of me. Not as many cuts were on my knees as had been on my palms.

  Normally I wouldn’t let a man tell me what to do in any way. But something about Nick tonight had me obeying and doing whatever he wanted me to do. I wanted to reach out and touch his soft dark hair, run my fingers through the strands as he paid attention to my knees. He removed what little glass there was and wiped the cuts with a clean dishcloth.

  When he was finished and had tossed all of the glass shards, he came back to me. I could only watch him, my heart in my throat. He took me by my wrist and brought me to my feet.

  “I missed you, Lexi.” His voice was rough. He didn’t call me Steele like he normally did. In the past he’d only used Lexi when we were intimate.

  “Nick—” I started to tell him to stop when he jerked me toward him and brought his mouth down hard on mine.

  The moment he kissed me, all coherent thought took flight. I couldn’t get enough of him. Couldn’t get enough of the taste of him, the feel of his hands on me, his warm masculine scent. My mind felt like it was spinning and I knew I’d lost complete control. Hell, I’d lost control the moment I saw him tonight.

  His hands felt familiar and warm as he moved them from my shoulders to my waist and the curve of my hips. He brought me tight to him and I felt his hard length pressed against my belly. His desire clearly matched my own.

  I slid my arms around his neck, kissing him with all the pent up passion that had been building inside me for so long. I hadn’t even realized the power of it until that moment.

  My breathing grew heavier, my nipples tight against the soft material of my dress. I moved my hands from around his neck as he kissed me and spread my palms over his chest before easing them down to the button of his jeans.

  He caught my hands in his as he broke the kiss, keeping me from going any further.

  “We have to stop.” He searched my gaze as confusion swept through me. “Unless you’re willing to give me your heart, I can’t do this, Lexi.”

  I stared at him. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “Can’t and won’t are two different things.” His jaw tightened. He took me by my shoulders. “I thought that giving you some time and space might help you realize that we have more going on between us than just sex.”

  I looked away from him. “I’m damaged goods, Nick. I’m broken inside.”

  He caught my face in his hands. “You are not, and it’s time you got that through your thick head.”

  I wanted so much to believe him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  I’d been an assassin. I’d killed people I didn’t know and didn’t have any idea if they’d been good or bad. It hadn’t been my choice, but I had done what I was ordered to do. Because I had to.

  “Why are you here?” I asked as he moved his hands away from my face. “You didn’t come back for me.”

  His eyes darkened. “Hagstedt. Or Bachmann. Whatever the hell he’s called now.”

  I gave a slow nod. Bachmann was the reason why I couldn’t sleep at night. It used to be the horrors of my past. Now it was because of the horrors that Bachmann put innocent victims through every day of their lives. When I’d finally come face to face with him, I hadn’t been able to take him down.

  Nick took a step away from me, putting cool distance between us. “I’ll see you Monday at HQ.”

  “Are you working for RED again?” I asked as he turned away.

  “I never stopped.” He looked over his shoulder as he grasped the doorknob. “See you Monday.” He opened the door and paused, as if he was going to say something else. But then he walked out and shut the door firmly behind him.

  Chapter 3

  Karl Bachmann, aka Anders Hagstedt

  Karl Bachmann paced the length of the hotel suite as John, his government puppet, watched. Karl’s mind churned, his head ached. His limp from the bullet he’d taken to the thigh was exacerbated by his anger.

  He could almost feel the huge shards of glass shredding his features. He’d been forced to undergo plastic surgery to give him a new face—to repair the damage and to avoid ever being recognized. His formerly shattered hand ached when he clenched it into a fist.

  He’d been double-crossed. Betrayed. His life ruined.

  Someone in the U.S. Government had been responsible for his house of cards crumbling into dust. Someone had been responsible for the fortune he’d lost. For the loss of his identity, his wealth. Everything was gone now because he’d been betrayed.

  “I was one of the most powerful and influential men in Switzerland,” Karl said to John in a snarl. “I owned a well known ski chalet and a popular chocolate factory and had millions in the bank.” He’d also run a popular sex slave business locally beneath his ski chalet and he’d owned personal sex slaves throughout the years. He’d used the young men and women then discarded them depending on whether or not he tired of them or they’d grown too old. “Your people ruined my life.”

  More important than all of his other businesses, was a business so profitable it outclassed everything else—he’d run a worldwide sex slave organization that had made him millions. His sex slave trade in the States had been one of his most profitable ventures.

  Now almost everything was gone.

  Everything but this one last venture. It had been a safety net so that he had influence in the U.S. Government just in case he needed it.

  And now he needed it.

  He clenched his hands into fists and ground his teeth.

  John looked scared but like he was trying to hide it. He very well should be frightened.

  People who should have protected him were going to die or their lives would be completely ruined. The woman…his scowl magnified as he thought about the brunette. She would die a slow and painful death.

  “I want to know why I was double-crossed and targeted.” Karl said in a harsh voice, his Swedish accent strong. “My business was to be protected. For that my services would be availed to those in government who wanted them.”

  John said nothing, as if he was too frightened to speak.

  “I’ll make sure careers and lives are ended if you don’t take care of this immediately.” Karl shook with rage. “Bender. Ackerson. Mackie. Jones. Eckstrom. Their lives will be as ruined as mine is.”

  John’s throat worked as he swallowed. Karl had just named some of the biggest men in government.

  Karl picked up a photograph on his desk of the short brunette whore before he continued. “One in particular is the woman.” He looked over the photograph of the bitch who had helped to ruin him. Not that long ago she had infiltrated his New York sex slave organization and when she’d located him, it had brought down his house of cards. Now his true identity was known and his former life was lost to him forever. His money, his power, his prestige—all of it gone.

  “Now that she’s been identified,” Karl said, “I want her because she was responsible for tracking me down, shattering my hand, and ultimately for the damage done to my face.” He flung the photograph back on the desk. “It was her fault that little Chinese slut got a hold of that vase. The Steele bitch will pay with her life. I want her now.”

  John visibly flinched from the anger in Karl’s voice. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “You will do better than that.” Karl pointed his finger a
t John. He didn’t give a shit that John held a high position in the U.S. Government other than how it would best benefit Karl’s last remaining enterprise and his future. “You will have her brought to me and I will kill her myself.”

  “Yes, sir.” John gave a single nod. “I’ll make sure it’s done.”

  “And I will take care of those responsible for not shielding me,” Karl said. “Did you think I would simply stand around and put up with the incompetence I’ve witnessed?”

  John shook his head. “No, of course not.”

  Karl resisted throwing one of the hotel’s crystal lamps at the wall across the room. Seeing the crystal shatter and score the wall would give him only a small measure of satisfaction.

  He stopped pacing and gave John a steely glare. “Remember this—if I go down, everyone goes down.” Karl paused for emphasis. “I can take you down so fast that you’ll end up in prison for life.”

  John’s features grew pale.

  “I have compromising pictures of every single man involved and extensive blackmail files. No one has been left out.” Karl paused for emphasis. “Including you.”

  Karl had the urge to laugh at the fear written across John’s face. It was perfect how corruptible the men were whom he’d brought into his fold.

  “I will not hesitate to kill to protect myself and this venture.” Karl stared at John with biting anger in his chest. “The lives of your men in your pitiful government mean nothing to me.”

  “That won’t be necessary.” John shifted his stance in a nervous movement as the words tumbled from his mouth. “Like I said, we’ll get the woman.”

  “If you don’t think I’m serious, you will.” Karl gave John a cold smile. “Watch the papers over the next few days. What you will find will be my warning shot.”

  Chapter 4

  A little one-on-one is good for the soul

  “Oh, no you don’t.” I snatched the basketball from my older brother, Evan, and went for a three-point shot.

  My six-two brother blocked it, batting it away from the hoop and knocking it out of bounds. “Ha, small stuff.”

  With a laugh, Rori, my younger sister, said, “You know those are fighting words with Lexi.” She picked up the ball that had rolled in front of the bottom step of my parents’ front porch. She tossed it to me and my palms stung from last night’s glass cuts as I caught it.

  “Better believe those are fighting words,” I said. I dribbled the ball, dodged my brother, and went for a lay-up. I might be height challenged but I’m quick and coordinated.

  The ball swished through the hoop and I raised my arms. “Yes!” I grinned at him. “One more game and you can crown me the champ.” We were one and one now.

  “It’ll never happen.” Evan had a devilish gleam in his eyes.

  Zane’s dark SUV pulled up to the curb on the right side of my parents’ corner house. I rested the ball on my hip as I waved to my brother and his wife, Willow, when they climbed out of the vehicle. Willow had almost been drafted into the WNBA when she graduated with her bachelor’s degree. She’d chosen to continue her education instead. I loved having her on my team when the bunch of us played basketball.

  Mama stepped onto the front porch and called out, “About time. Sunday supper is getting cold.”

  Zane reached the bottom of the porch, jogged up the steps, and gave our mother a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry, Mama.”

  “Just get your arses in the house, wash up, and sit down at the table.” She said it with mock-seriousness as she pointed to the front door.

  “Hi, Molly.” Willow reached Mama and gave her a quick kiss. Willow was a free spirit and a lot of fun. She was good for Zane who could be too serious at times.

  I carried the ball under my arm as Evan put his hand on my shoulder and we headed toward the house. “You’re just lucky our game is postponed,” I said. “I was ready to kick your ass.”

  Evan snorted. “You should be so lucky.”

  We walked up the front steps to the porch. “Luck has nothing to do with it.” I hit him in the gut with the ball and he released me to catch it. I grabbed the handle of the screen door. “Skill, baby, skill,” I added with a grin.

  Before he could say anything else, I stepped into the cool recesses of my parents’ home, the home where all seven of us had grown up—my five brothers, sister, and I.

  I hurried into the kitchen, and like the others I washed up. I helped by carrying out a big platter of thick potato fries while our youngest brother, Sean, brought out the large tray of battered fish. Willow grabbed the cauliflower while Zane picked up the bowl of buttered cabbage.

  Sunday supper was something we all tried hard not to miss. Mama and Daddy counted on us to be here. When Ryan was in the Marines, he hadn’t been able to very often, and Zane and I had to take off on assignment fairly often. Rori, as a flight attendant, had an unpredictable schedule, too. Today, everyone was here and my mother was beaming.

  The ten of us seated ourselves around the huge table that was just big enough for my parents, brothers and sister, and me and our sister-in-law, Willow. Add any more family members and we were going to need an additional table.

  “Great fish and chips, Mama.” I smiled at her.

  As I looked at the pink scarf tied around her head, I tried not to think about the trials she was going through. She’d never let the cancer beat her down and hadn’t changed when it came to her ability to handle her own with her six grown children and one still at home. Sean, a late in life surprise, was still a teenager, but had turned into a different kind of challenge.

  Evan, who was now a detective with the Boston Police Department, pretended to pass the plate of beer-battered fish right past Sean to Troy, who was a firefighter. In the past Sean would have complained good-naturedly, but instead he scowled. He had changed from a hyper fun-loving twelve-year-old to a brooding thirteen. Yes, he had definitely crossed to the Dark Side as Daddy liked to call puberty.

  With a shake of his head, Evan placed the platter in front of Sean. “Hurry up, kid.”

  Sean loaded his plate then passed it to Troy who took his share. Mama always made a truckload of food for her bunch. It was a wonder they’d been able to feed all of us as poor as we’d been growing up. Somehow there was always good Irish food on the table. We’d lived on potatoes, cabbage, and whatever meat happened to be on sale. As far as we were concerned when we were kids, we ate like kings.

  Rori was the only one of us who picked at her food. A flight attendant, she was always on a diet even though she was slender. Rori and I had similar features and we both had dark hair. We were exact opposites in personality, though, and she was four inches taller than my five-four. Somehow in our family of giants, our older brothers all over six feet, I’d ended up with the short straw. Even Sean, our baby brother, was getting close to our older brothers’ heights.

  Zane was also a RED operative like me, and he’d recently recruited Ryan, a former Marine, into the organization. No one else in our family knew about RED. They thought Zane was still with the Secret Service, that Ryan had become a bodyguard, and that I was an interpreter—I speak multiple languages and dialects. The secrecy was necessary to protect the rest of our family.

  Our family could be a pretty raucous bunch and today was no exception. Mama looked on in pride where Daddy acted as if he was grudgingly putting up with all of us, but I know that secretly he loved it as much as Mama did.

  I think Mama loved the normalcy that we worked hard to keep up. Her breast cancer had been a shock to us all, but she was a strong woman and wasn’t about to go down without a fight. If she could raise seven rowdy kids, she could put up a hell of a fight when it came to cancer.

  As our family laughed, talked, and ate, I did my best not to think of Nick. It was nearly impossible to keep my thoughts from wandering to him. He was back, if only for a short time.

  He’s back.

  I stared at my plate and couldn’t help but think about the way he’d looked when he walked through
the door of the nightclub. Fierce, brooding, dark, and dangerous. And then the way he’d studied me last night after he kissed me. Sensual, gentle, loving.

  “Unless you’re willing to give me your heart, I can’t do this, Lexi.”

  The memory of his words sent a sharp pang though my chest. Why couldn’t it be like before? Why did he have to push me into something beyond what we’d had?

  And I was going to have to see him again tomorrow at work.

  “Lex.”

  I looked up from my plate and met Troy’s gaze. “Where were you just now? Mama asked you a question.”

  “Right here.” I turned to Mama and gave her a smile. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

  “Will you be here for supper next Sunday?” she asked.

  “I hope so.” I gripped my fork. “I never know when I’ll be sent out of town on a job.”

  “Mama’s making sorrel pie next Sunday,” Rori said. That was the one thing that Rori would break her diet for.

  “Yum.” I grinned. “I’ll plan on it like I always do and hope that something else doesn’t break my plans.”

  Mama nodded. She smiled but she looked tired. She was too thin from the chemo before the surgery. She’d had surgery not that long ago, but the doctors weren’t sure they’d gotten it all so now she was taking radiation treatments. She always put up a brave front but I could see it in her eyes.

  Mama started to get up. “Time for dessert after we get these dishes cleared from the table.”

  “You sit down.” I put my hand on her arm. “You have seven kids, eight counting Willow. We’re more than capable.”

  We’d always had to argue with her to let us do all of the cleaning up, but she always insisted on being in the middle of it. This time she nodded. “Dessert is in the fridge.”

  The fact that she gave in so easily told me she wasn’t feeling well and it made my belly twist. But I only smiled and squeezed her thin arm. Always a robust woman, my mother had never been thin or frail until now, and it was hard to see her that way.